Over the last decade or so, for most businesses, it has become a necessity for employees to share data over a network such as a local area network. To improve efficiency, enhancements have been added to local area networks such as remote wireless access. This enhancement provides an important extension in forming a wireless local area network (WLAN).
Typically, a WLAN supports communications between wireless stations and Access Points (APs) for example. In general, each AP operates as a relay station by supporting communications between wireless stations and other APs being part of a wireless network and resources on a wired network.
Currently, when a large WLAN is deployed, the usual procedure is to conduct an extensive site survey. A “site survey” involves a team of technicians, who are responsible for deploying and configuring the WLAN based on a fixed set of network requirements. The network requirements may involve traffic capacity, throughput (in megabits per. second), constraints on signal coverage, and the like. Based on chosen network requirements and the overall physical dimensions of the site, technicians estimate the number of APs that are required to cover the area of interest, where to locate these APs, and the channel that each AP should operate on.
More specifically, one or more APs are initially positioned at the site and complex radio frequency (RF) measurement tools are physically moved to various locations on the site to sample received wireless signals. This enables the technicians to better determine propagation characteristics for the site being surveyed in efforts to minimize dead spots and maximize coverage.
In addition, as APs are added and repositioned based on measured results from the RF measurement tools, power level and channel assignments are manually conducted for each AP. These assignments are designed to minimize interference caused by neighboring APs.
One disadvantage associated with conventional site survey techniques is that it is labor intensive, which tends to substantially increase the overall costs in deploying a WLAN. Another disadvantage is that site surveys can only be performed based on static network requirements, not dynamically. Slight changes to the network requirements after deployment of the WLAN would warrant another site survey to be conducted, which is highly disruptive to persons working at this location and fails to address situations in which an AP fails. Yet another disadvantage is that the location and power level/channel adjustments are not self-calibrating, namely performed automatically by the APs. Rather, conventional site surveys require physical maneuvering of signal measuring equipment.